If you're a regular on my blog, you'd know I've just started a new venture - audiobooks! I'm super excited about this since I've wanted to create audiobooks for my books for so long now. Being an Australian author, doing this has been very difficult. BUT my e-book distributor, Draft2Digital has come to rescue! In conjunction with Findaway Voices, I now have the option to create audiobooks.

I signed up and in my previous post (found here) I was asked a series of questions designed to narrow down the kind of narrator that would suit my book and then it was a waiting game.

So, what's happened since then? I had a few emails from Findaway Voices, all keeping me updated on the progress of my 'project'. I got an email about the narrator list, telling me it was coming soon. I even got an email 'just to check in' and see if I had any questions on the progress. 

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When my narrator list finally arrived, I had to stop myself from doing a little happy dance. It was like Christmas. I had a list of eight narrators, each with no less than two samples of their work. Many narrators had between four and eight samples of their work, ranging from educational readings to romance to sci-fi and scientific works. Many also had samples of male and female voices (all of my narrators are male at my request) as well as different kinds of monologues like introspective and intrigue monologues.

After listening to all of them a number of times, I settled on two narrators. One had a price of $275 per finished hour and the other was $125 per finished hour. I had the option to either select the narrator outright, or request an audition. I requested auditions for both of them.

I received only one audition back, but it was AMAZING! It was such a thrill to hear my own words being read by someone else. The narrator really captured the tone and feeling of my characters and their voices. 





According to my word count, I've figured out an approximate overall cost to produce an audiobook version of Dark Deceit. Is it a risk? Yes, absolutely. I'd have to sell over 150 copies to break even. Is it worth it? I believe it is. I guess the only way to really know, is to try. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

So what's my overall feeling towards Findaway Voices and this process? I love it. I'm being kept up-to-date on everything. The website is streamline and easy to use and navigate. I'd definitely recommend them to anyone who wanted to investigate producing audiobooks for themselves.